‘Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition’ Impressions — A Solid Debut On Console

When Divinity: Original Sin debuted on PC, the acclaim for Larian Studios’ game continued to mount up. People praised the game for its stunning visuals, old school RPG style, unforgiving tactical combat, and its unwillingness to hand-hold the player through the game. Divinity: Original Sin turned out to be one of those “diamonds-in-the-rough” Kickstarter stories. So when Larian announced that Divinity: Original Sin would be ported to consoles as the Enhanced Edition, console players rejoiced. The Enhanced Edition also released on PC, giving every platform the ultimate version of Larian’s masterwork.

However, moving a PC RPG to console isn’t an easy feat, as Divinity creative director Swen Vincke told Electric Playground. You run into the task of remapping what works so well as a PC game using mouse and keyboard onto the constrained environment of a gamepad. However, Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition does this pretty well. Menus are accessed pulling RT/R2 and LT/L2 on your Xbox One or PS4 controller respectively, your hotbar is navigated by pressing Y/Triangle, characters are moved with the Left Stick while the camera is manipulated using the Right stick. The controls feel natural to a degree and the game does a great job of showing you how to use them through some carefully constructed tutorial areas.

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition follows the escapades of two Source Hunters who are on their way to the beleaguered city of Cyseal to investigate a murder of one of the city’s councilors. Divinity: Original Sin is a completely solo-able experience, but is intended to play multiplayer if you can, as some of the puzzles requires your character to be split up from each other in order to properly complete them. From opening doors to solving the sequence of activating elemental pillars in an underground dungeon, the addition of a second person will help immensely. Because of this, Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition includes split-screen co-op as well as multiplayer. This comes at a cost, however, as Original Sin is brought to a 1080p, 30-frames-per-second presentation to facilitate the drop-in, drop-out split screen play. It makes sense to do this, however, as it would be immensely jarring to be playing solo at 60 frames per second and then all of a sudden have your sibling pick up a controller and then be relegated to a 30fps experience.

The unyielding gameplay is on full display here, with Divinity not holding your hand through the game. You’re required to actually pay attention to dialogue, which is helped by the full voice-work now implemented in Enhanced Edition; read journals; interact with objects and people; and explore every avenue in order to complete your quests. Additionally, combat is tactical, requiring you to not only be aware of your enemies, but also the environment around you. Your spells and skills interact with the environment, as do your enemies, so using your skill set to its fullest is a must to win an encounter.

It’s here where my only complaint about the control scheme comes into play. Because you’re missing the quickness of keyboard keybindings and the immense accuracy of a mouse, reacting to situations in real time can be slow and frustrating. This in my initial playthroughs has been exacerbated when finishing combat and seeing lingering status effects whittle down my allies’ health. Instead of being able to quickly navigate my inventory or skill tree to heal the status, I’ve been required to waste resurrection scrolls outside of combat because the desired item or skill is hidden behind too many menus or gamepad bindings. However, the most frustrating thing thus far about Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition isn’t even the game itself, but my inability to remember to quick save. Autosaving only happens so often (though you can set how many autosaves you want to keep in your menu options) and relying on your autosave is a sure fire way to redo an hour’s worth of content upon death.

All in all, though, Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition feels right at home on console. Anyone who has been interested in Divinity: Original Sin can rest assured knowing that the Enhanced Edition would be a great addition to any discerning RPG fan’s library.

Playing Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments section below.

[Image credit: Larian Studios]